Unisys' ISG arm expects to profit from technical focus

The European services arm of Unisys expects to be profitable on flat revenues during 1996, following a period of reorganisation and retrenchment which has seen the supplier reject general consultancy in favour of technical consultancy.

Unisys expects its Information Services Group (ISG) to be profitable on revenues slightly up on last year’s total of $600m, according to George Cox, managing director of ISG in Europe. In January, Unisys split worldwide into the ISG services arm, the global customer services (GCS) group, and the computer systems group (CSG).

Unisys’ European ISG arm was not concentrating on revenue growth during 1996, Cox told a meeting of journalists and customers in July. “We want to make sure that the business is solidly profitable before expanding, even if that means retrenching on some areas. Before the reorganisation, we had more resources than the revenues justified, (but) it would have been risky to try to sell our way out of the problem. I am confident that we will now beat our target for revenues, and that we will meet our target for profitability in 1996,” he said.

The consultancy business is now positioned as a technology consultancy, rather than general consultancy. “The consultancy services which we offer all hinge around solutions. We are not trying to become a separate consultancy practice,” Cox said. “I don’t think the market is concerned that we are not independent of Unisys – we are not there to give independent advice; that is not our business. But if someone has a problem and they want a solution to be delivered, they know that we would not put in a solution that was inappropriate to their needs,” he said.